I never would have imagined at the start of this year, that I would have won a contest and got a free skydiving adventure in San Diego. But, life is unplanned and spontaneous 🙂 and that’s the best part about it!

I had what I call a “man-tourage” who all decided to join me on this special occasion- Josh White, Johnny Elsaesser, Alex Christ, and Mitchell Arvanites,. These are all good friends of mine that I either grew up or went to college with. Josh and Alex had been skydiving before, so there were only 3 newbies in the group!

Chanel and her Mantourage

Everything kind of all happened so fast, and next thing I knew we were strapped up and assigned an instructor and off we walked across the field to the plane.

The plane was tiny, and there were many of us..AKA we were sardines on a plane!

I was one of the last few to hop on board, meaning I’d be one of the first to jump out of the plane (EEEK). I had been told by previous skydivers that the plane ride is the scariest part, but I was unusually calm, and in kind of a zen mode. Even the instructor asked if I was alright. But I just felt really content..it was a nice feeling when you’re 13,000 feet in the air. There were a couple of “fun” divers who were doing some solo jumps that went before the tandem divers. Once they opened that door and those 3 people jumped- THAT’S when I started freaking out! That is what I WAS GOING TO BE DOING! NO TURNING BACK NOW…

THEN WOOOOO:

This really was an experience of a lifetime and I want to thank everyone (the 700+ of you) who voted for me as a Finalist to win this contest. And of course I can’t thank Lesley and Bucket List Publications ENOUGH for this FANTASTIC opportunity. I will forever be grateful.

I can’t begin to describe the feeling after jumping, I was super relaxed and calm and in a “high” sense of overall happiness. Life was awesome-I hadn’t a worry in the world. I was surrounded by people I loved. And it was time for a magnum of champagne that my mother had so kindly brought for us to celebrate after the jump 😉

Now, my man-tourage and I want jump again ASAP 😀 We are thinking about going to Santa Barbara’s SkyDiving location where they have the world’s highest tandem jump at 18,000 feet…

Wow that sounds great! And my first skydiving experience was really similar to yours–I was super calm and in the zone (the instructors were weirded out by that too) but when it came time to jump; I guess it just finally hit me what I was actually doing. Jumping out of a freaking plane 10,000ft up.
And ever since then, I can’t wait to do it again!